Archive for the ‘Pregnancy’ Category

Having a baby is a crazy time in anyone’s life. Whether it’s your first child and you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into or your third and it’s all been-there-done-that, it’s surely going to be a crazy, hectic time. And yet, many of us manage to fit in some wild stuff in between labor pains. There are the usual things like not getting any medication to help with the pain (you put me in that much pain and I’d be breaking into the prison pharmacy if I had to) or eating a hearty meal only to throw it up shortly thereafter.

There is a lot of information that can help a teacher figure out how best to help a student learn. Seemingly irrelevant data such as who the child lives with, what language (or languages) are spoken at home, and if the child has any medical issues are all clues a teacher can use tailor lessons to a child’s specific situation. There’s one bit of information, however, that I simply can’t imagine anyone at a child’s school needing to know — but that didn’t stop one school district from asking for it.

Calling the current system “Edwardian,” Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg wants to overhaul Britain’s rules governing maternity and paternity leave. Specifically, he wants to increase the amount of time men take off from work after their child is born. Currently, women are allowed up to a year of maternity leave; under the new rules, if they return to work before that time is up, the father would be able to use the remainder of the unpaid leave.

Being the product of a marriage between a Jewish man and a Catholic woman, I will admit to being rather opposed to the idea that one should never marry outside one’s faith. If a couple can get past their religious differences, I don’t see a problem with it. Of course, I’m rather dismissive of religion and its influence anyway, so perhaps it’s not surprising that not everyone agrees with me. Rabbi Dov Lior, a prestigious Rabbi in Israel and an authority on Jewish law, goes further and says that Jewish parents need to make sure their kids are 100% Jewish too.

Here’s something you don’t see every day — a British couple has discovered that not only are they aunt and uncle but that they are also the grandparents of the same children. Lynn and Charles Lowden learned that Lynn’s sister’s children were actually her own son’s offspring. Now, before you start calling Jerry Springer, it’s not as bad as it might sound at first.

Whether you love or hate former Vice President Dick Cheney’s previous employer Halliburton, you would likely agree that a company that has profited so much from federal government contracts ought to, at the very least, follow federal law in return. According to one former employee, however, that is not the case. Lynda Darden, of Dallas Texas, was fired last year for having “violated the company’s policy against procreation.”

Did you know that you’re not supposed to smoke marijuana while pregnant? I didn’t. My wife didn’t. No one told us during any of our three pregnancies. Not that it was an issue; neither of us uses marijuana. Still, given its prevalence and acceptance in California in general and the Bay Area in particular, I’m surprised it wasn’t part of the classes we took and that my wife’s doctors never mentioned it. Sadly, we’re not the only ones who didn’t know.

I’ve long been one of those snobs who simply won’t drink beer that comes in a can. Heck, in many cases, I won’t even call it beer. It turns out, now, that quality and taste of the beer is just one reason to avoid beer in cans. According to a study of Chinese factory workers, drinking beer (or, for that matter, soda) from cans will do more than reduce your chances of getting laid — it affects your ability to make anything happen if you do.

It seems that radio stations play the “talk to your kids about drugs” ads almost as much as they do music these days. Aside from the fact that they aren’t music, that’s not a bad thing. After all, I don’t think anyone would argue that parents shouldn’t talk to their kids about drugs or that doing so would lead to increased abuse. Mind you, it’s certainly not foolproof prevention, but it also certainly can’t hurt. So why is it that parents don’t feel the same way about sex?

Imagine giving birth to a 20-year-old. Sure, it lets you avoid changing diapers and those trying teenage years, but imagine the labor pains! My middle child was so big that she got stuck on the way out; my youngest was even bigger. Luckily for the 42-year-old mother, however, the 20-year-old baby boy she gave birth to was apparently of normal size. But how, you ask, could a woman give birth to a 20-year-old, baby-sized or otherwise?